Beginning to See the Light: Sex, Hope, and Rock-and-Roll

Glossary for the Eighties

Glossary for the Eighties A; the seventies draw to a close, it is painfully obvious that militant critics of our society have fallen on hard times. Young, eager, and sexy only a decade ago, they have aged badly. By now the least perceptive of them have realized that radical is no longer chic; where once crowds of people hung on their every word, now the same words are almost certain to elicit an uncomfortable silence, a tactful change of subject, or an outright sneer. But most radicals have not yet caught on that "the same words" are actually at the root of their problem. In keeping with a general tendency to cling to the manners and mores of their beloved sixties (radicals are a conservative lot), they have failed to master the subtleties of contemporary discourse. It's impossible for people to communicate if they don't speak the same language. And so, for those who would rather not spend the eighties standing alone in a corner muttering "The country is swinging to the right!" I've compiled a basic vocabulary. DOGMA: a political belief one is unreasonably committed to, such as the notion that freedom is good and slavery is bad. H5 A M E R I C A N G I R L S W A N T E V E R Y T H I N G BIAS: predilection for a particular dogma. For example, the feminist bias is that women are equal to men and the male chauvinist bias is that women are inferior. The unbiased view is that the truth lies somewhere in between. IDEOLOGY: a body of dogma, usually based on the stubborn belief that some social injustice exists and ought to be corrected. Not to be confused with "ideas," which are common-sense propositions like "The truth lies somewhere in between" and "Life is unfair." IDEOLOGICAL FANATIC: a compulsive purveyor of ideology. In particular , one who can't resist bringing up pet dogmas at awkward or inappropriate moments, such as during a sensible discussion of more important issues or at a social gathering where someone has unwittingly offended the fanatic's beliefs (see SUPERSENSITIVE, below). The term is often applied to women who drag feminism into everything, as when they make a fuss because some terrific populist politician thinks abortion is murder. Also used of people who make themselves into terrible bores by repeatedly criticizing the same social evil, simply because nothing has been done about it. PARTY LINE: an opinion shared by three or more ideological fanatics. INDEPENDENT THINKERS: people who refuse to do the easy thing, the popular thing, who boldly repudiate party lines. For example, women who declare that it's okay to be a sex object again; straight liberals who confess that the scene on Christopher Street makes them sick. STALINIST: a particularly abrasive ideological fanatic. One who hews to the party line and accuses independent thinkers of telling the people in power what they want to hear. Stalinists can never get it through their heads that a person can be sympathetic to their cause without being an ideological fanatic; a typical Stalinist trick is to insinuate that such people are not as sympathetic as they 146 Glossary for the Eighties pretend. For instance, Stalinists invariably get their backs up when male friends of the women's movement refer to Bella Abzug as "that loudmouthed bitch." (cf. popular sixties epithet, "fascist") HUMORLESS: what you are if you do not find the following subjects funny: rape, big breasts, sex with little girls. It carries no imputation of humorlessness if you do not find the following subjects funny: impotence, castration, vaginas with teeth. SUPERSENSITIVE: in the habit of hearing insult and bigotry where none is intended. Jews are traditionally the worst offenders, being inclined to take constructive criticism like "Pale-faced Jew-boy, I wish you were dead" as evidence of anti-Semitism. The especially supersensitive may even react angrily to compliments, such as "I prefer liberated women, they're better fucks." SHRILL: female. PARANOID: Jewish. ZIONIST: paranoid. CRANK: see IDEOLOGICALFANATIC. Also SUPERSENSITIVE. OPPRESSION: the endless abuses committed by ideological fanatics— especially pushy blacks, women, Jews, and homosexuals—against long-suffering regular people. Oppressors have often been known to corner their victims at dinner parties and subject them to Stalinist harangues. Another common form of oppression consists of asking the victim tactless personal questions, such as "Do you share...